Saturday, August 03, 2013

Google scientists make unscientific attack

In 2011 Google appointed 21 Google Science Communication Fellows (GSCF) – academics representing the cream of US climate-change science – and tasked them with exploring new ways of communicating the issue to the public. On Thursday, 17 of the GSCF did just that, and called out Google for its own failings in an open letter.

This public shaming of their sponsors was inspired not by Google's operational practices, they said, but by its political actions – specifically Mountain View's active support for Senator James Mountain "Jim" Inhofe (R-OK).

Among his most notorious statements, Senator Inhofe has outrageously claimed that climate change is "a hoax on the American people" and, in the absence of a shred of factual evidence, accused climate scientists of being "criminals."

Sen. Inhofe does like the word "hoax", but usually for catastrophic global warming. I never heard him say that climate change is a hoax, and the letter does not provide a reference.

This is pitiful. When scientists complain about someone else being anti-science, I expect them to show off their scientific thinking and document the errors. This letter does not.

But Inhofe's assault on the scientific community is not a difference in climate policy; it's a strategy designed to promote dysfunction and paralysis; to destroy the reputation of scientists and the legitimacy of their institutions; and to undermine our ability to find common ground.

Americans are over-regulated and over-taxed. When regulation escalates, the result is an increase in regulators. In other words, bigger government is required to enforce the greater degree of regulation. Bigger government means bigger budgets and higher taxes. "More" simply doesn't mean "better." A perfect example is the entire global warming, climate-change issue, which is an effort to dramatically and hugely increase regulation of each of our lives and business, and to raise our cost of living and taxes. In The Greatest Hoax, Senator James Inhofe will reveal the reasons behind those perpetuating the Hoax of global warming, who is benefitting from the general acceptance of the Hoax and why the premise statements are blatantly and categorically false.

Again, this is sloppy language because the book says that man-made catastrophic global warming is a hoax. It seems plausibe to me that Inhofe's motives are exactly what he says, and that his strategy is not designed for any of the things alleged in the letter.

Inhofe is not a scientist, and may misstate the science for all I know. But these scientists are just making a stupid personal attack, and they should know better.